Chinese Health Official Arrested for Leaking AIDS Secrets

From CDC National Prevention Information Network

August 19, 2003

A prominent health official in China's AIDS-stricken Henan
province has been arrested for allegedly leaking secret documents
related to the infection of tens of thousands of villagers
through blood transfusions, an AIDS activist said Tuesday. Ma
Shiwen, deputy director of the Henan Centers for Disease Control,
was arrested for providing documents on the Henan epidemic to the
nongovernmental AIDS activist organization Aizhi Action Group,
said the group's director Wan Yanhai.

"According to health officials in Henan, Ma Shiwen was
arrested in recent days and is being charged with leaking state
secrets," reported Wan, who is in the United States as a visiting
scholar. "It's possible that the secrets leaked concerned
official documents that were anonymously sent to [AAG] on August
24 last year and which revealed the extent of the AIDS outbreak
in Henan," he continued.

Wan was also charged with leaking state secrets days after
he received the documents and posted them on AAG's Web site. Wan
was released a month later following an international outcry and
after police confirmed that the documents were anonymously sent
to the group.

"As far as I know, Ma Shiwen has not been formally sacked,
he is still deputy director of the section, he has just
disappeared," said a colleague at the Henan CDC, who refused to
identify himself. Other officials at Henan's health bureau
refused to comment when contacted.

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In August 2002, the government announced that about 1
million Chinese were HIV-positive with a significant percentage
in Henan, and warned the figure could increase tenfold before the
end of the decade. China's new openness about the Henan epidemic
has come as growing numbers of those affected have become
increasingly vocal about the government's role in the epidemic
and dissatisfied over insufficient services and medications in
rural areas.

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